TANZANIAN Transport Minister Harrison Mwakyembe says the country needs to spend more than US$6 billion on infrastructure to win a bigger slice of international trade, if economic development is to progress.

"In Tanzania the cost of transporting one tonne of goods per kilometre by road is US$0.15 whereas transporting the same weight by rail is $0.07 - that is, half the price. But currently in Tanzania over 95 per cent of heavy traffic is moved by road and only two per cent by railway," he said.

Dar es Salaam competes against Mombasa in Kenya for landlocked Africa transit cargo, but Dr Mwakyembe said that its infrastructure must be upgraded if Tanzania is to win a larger share of this trade, reports London's Containerisation International.

Speaking to the Association of African Development Financing Institutions (AADFI), the Dr Mwakyembe said: "If we aim to deliver a better standard of living, then the only question is how."

Dr Mwakyembe said modernisation work is underway at the ports of Dar es Salaam and Mtwara and planning was well advance in expanding cargo-handling at Mwambani and Mbegani.

"A port without a railway connection is nothing but a swimming pool," he said.

He said the government is repairing and upgrading the central railway that runs 2,707 kilometres from Kigoma to Dar es Salaam and is improving the Tanga to Arusha line that covers 438 kilometres. This would be connected to the new inland dry port at Kampala, Uganda, to provide shorter access from landlocked Uganda freight for exports through Mwambani, he said.

 

THE China-Pakistan-India (CPX) service that is jointly operated by Yang Ming Marine Transport and OOCL will now go to Mundra and discontinue calls at Pipavav and Mumbai's Nhava Sheva ports.

The changes to the port rotation of the CPX follow Yang Ming's move to purchase slots on the Central China-India (CCI) service operated by OOCL, RCL, X-Press Feeders and Hamburg Sud.

The revised rotation of the CPX service is now Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen-Shekou, Singapore, Karachi, Mundra, Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong and back to Shanghai.

The CPX uses five vessels ranging in size from 3,700-4,600 TEU.

Alphaliner said that Yang Ming has also stopped taking slots on the China-South East Asia-Nhava Sheva Express (NCS/NCX) service provided by OOCL, MOL and Samudera.

 

 

TAIWAN'S Wan Hai Lines is starting a separate Asia-Mexico-West Coast South America container shipping service in early July called WSA, after it quit the Asia-Mexico-WCSA jointly run by Evergreen, Cosco and PIL.

The port rotation of the WSA service is Kaohsiung, Shenzhen-Shekou, Hong Kong, Ningbo, Shanghai, Manzanillo (Mexico), Lazaro Cardenas, Buenaventura, Guayaquil, Callao, Manzanillo and back to Kaohsiung.

The first sailing is scheduled to depart from Kaohsiung on July 7. The service will deploy 1,500-TEU containerships, reports Alphaliner.

It pointed out that different from the joint service Wan Hai Lines participated in earlier, its new WSA service does not call in Chile, but at Guayaquil, which is not served by the existing joint service.

The report added that Wan Hai entered the trade in April 2011, when it participated in the joint service that is also called WSA with three other carriers. It originally provided two of the 10 ships running the service but later pulled out one of its ships.

 

EVIDENCE shows Transpacific Stabilisation Agreement' s (TSA) recommended peak season surcharges have been unevenly applied with non-vessel operating carriers (NVOCC) having to pay higher rates than beneficial cargo owners on the Far East-US routes.

Because the NVOCC-dominated spot market bears the brunt of peak season surcharges, NVOCCs pay between US$600-$1,000 per FEU more than cargo owners do, says Alphaliner.

The spot market rates on the Far East-US routes jumped by US$414 per FEU in the last two weeks, according to the Shanghai Containerised Freight Index (SCFI) report of June 15.

The sharp rise reflects carriers' partial success in applying the TSA's recommended peak season surcharge of $600 per FEU that took effect June 10. The SCFI Shanghai-USWC rate now stands at $2,739 per FEU, up from $1,418 per FEU in December last year, corresponding to a gain of 93 per cent over the last six months.

Alphaliner also said that in spite of the success in raising spot freight levels, the carriers' average revenue on the transpacific trade has lagged behind the SCFI's increases. The China Containerised Freight Index (CCFI) that measures average carrier revenue, shows rates to the US west coast have risen by only 29 per cent since December, with the peak season surcharges having little impact on revenue in the last two weeks.

Although vessel utilisation on the transpacific routes averaged over 95 per cent in April and May, and has been much stronger than on Far East-Europe trade lanes, where utilisation came to less than 90 per cent, carriers have not been able to push through with the full rate increases proposed by the TSA.

Carriers' earlier failure to carry out full proposed rate increases of $500 per FEU on new contracts for cargo owners starting from May 1 will have a negative impact for carriers with a high cargo owner vis-a-vis forwarder share. However, the carriers with higher NVOCC volumes will be the primary beneficiaries of the rise in the spot rates.

Alphaliner said the forwarder NVOCCs accounted for 39 per cent of Far East-US container volume in the first five months of 2012. Among the 16 largest carriers offering regular liner services on the transpacific route, MSC had the highest NVOCC participation with 74 per cent of its liftings coming from NVOCCs. APL, which has traditionally focused on the beneficial cargo owner market, had the lowest NVOCC participation at 22 per cent.

Five smaller carriers serving the transpacific route (PIL, UASC, Matson, Hainan POS and Wan Hai) have NVOCC shares of between 48 and 98 per cent, reflecting these niche carriers' heavier reliance on forwarders.

 

 

GENEVA's Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has added an extra week to the rotations of its Far East-Mediterranean Dragon and Tiger services by deploying two more 14,000-TEU ships, partly to cope with the carrier's surplus of megaships.

MSC currently has 48 ships that range in size from 12,500-14,000 TEU in its fleet.

The Dragon will turn around in 91 days, using 13 ships in the 13,800- to 14,000 TEU range, providing the longest rotation on the Far East-Med route among rival services.

The services rotate through Gioia Tauro, Valencia, Barcelona, La Spezia, Fos, Jeddah, Salalah, Jebel Ali, Singapore, Shenzhen-Chiwan, Hong Kong, Dalian, Xingang, Busan, Qingdao, Ningbo, Shanghai, Shenzhen-Yantian, Hong Kong, Shenzhen-Chiwan, Singapore and back to Gioia Tauro.

Tiger ships will turn around in 77 days, using 11 vessels in the 13,000- to 14,000 TEU range. This service focuses on the eastern Med, rotating through Beirut, Piraeus, Istanbul, Evyap, Piraeus, Jeddah, Salalah, Singapore, Busan, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong, Shenzhen-Chiwan, Singapore, Jeddah and back to Beirut.

The two services will adopt slow steaming in the both directions, at an average speed of about 14 knots on the eastbound leg and about 16-18 knots on the westbound leg.

 

THE Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has received the MSC Valeria, the last vessel in a series of 26 ultra-large containerships (ULCs) with capacities of between 13,798 TEU and 14,000 TEU, built by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) and Samsung.

The 14,000-TEUers are 366 metres long, 51.2 metres wide with a 20-row breath, which are wider than the new Panama locks limit of 49 metres.

The MSC Valeria is the 18th of the DSME vessels, which are of a similar design with the Samsung units of the same dimensions. She has joined last week MSC's Asia-Med 'Dragon' service. The MSC Valeria follows the MSC Deila in the DSME series, delivered in April, according to Alphaliner.

In addition to these ULCs, MSC has also received 22 neopanamax VLCs ranging in size from 12,500-13,000 TEU and is expecting four further ships of this size before the end of 2012. It has also recently launched a newbuilding programme for six 16,000-TEU ships, to be chartered from Zodiac Maritime.

 

WEIGHING laden containers should be a requirement at terminals say container shipping lines and labour organisations in Denmark, Holland and the US, who want to make it a legal requirement enforced under UN's International Maritime Organisation (IMO) safety rules.

The effort is supported by the International Chamber of Shipping, which represents 80 per cent of all shipping tonnage afloat; the World Shipping Council, which represents container carriers and the International Transport Workers' Federation, the official representative of transport workers at the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO), the UN's International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation.

But the European Shippers Council (ESC) disagrees, saying the proposal to have all containers weighed before loading is a "false remedy for an ill-defined disease."

While mis-declaration of container weights has been blamed for shipboard accidents and in ports and on highways, the ESC does not believe that this is the major cause.

"We admit that mis-declaration of weights needs our attention, but oppose the idea that it's the biggest threat to the safety of workers in the supply chain. If the sector is truly looking for a safer supply chain, all parties should take their responsibility," said an ESC statement.

Container weigh-ins is one of the current demands of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) despite resistance from waterfront management of US east and Gulf coast ports fearful of congestion and back-ups creating higher costs. Contract talks between management and the longshore union have recently started

 

CHINA Southern Airlines has posted a 13.1 per cent year-on-year increase freight throughput to 104,200 tonnes in May while its passenger volume was up four per cent to 6.88 million tonnes in the same period, Xinhua reports.

In this month, the carrier's domestic cargo volume increased 7.1 per cent to 76,100 tonnes. Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan freight grew 38.5 per cent to 1,500 tonnes. International cargo increased 32.9 per cent to 26,600 tonnes.

From January to May, China Southern moved 478,600 tonnes of cargo, up six per cent year on year. Passenger volume increased 7.3 per cent to 34.43 million people.